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EDA overzicht |
By Javier Solana, Financial Times, May 23 2005
Within the space of five years, the European Union has
moved from rhetoric to action in matters of security and defence.
Operational capacities have been planned, deployed and tested. Military
missions have been launched in the Balkans and in Africa. More than
50,000 troops from EU member states are deployed on peacekeeping
missions. These actions are guided by a European security strategy that
seeks a secure Europe in a better world. Matching our defence
capabilities to our ambitions and obligations will be a key challenge
in the years ahead.
European leaders have unanimously defined the task. It is to transform
their militaries into more flexible, mobile forces and enable them to
address new threats. That means spending more or spending better. Now,
we struggle to sustain less than 5 per cent of our overall military
manpower on vital peace-support tasks. This seems a poor return on the
Euros 160bn (Pounds 110bn) that the member states between them spend on
defence each year. So today in Brussels, EU defence ministers will not
only review current military operations. Crucially, as board members of
the European Defence Agency, they will also consider how Europe can
ensure that a strong defence sector can equip its militaries with the
necessary capabilities in the decades to come.
The scale of the transformation required is huge. A radical shift of
investment must be made from heavy metal and high explosive to the
supporting and enabling capabilities that effective crisis management
operations demand. We need the equipment and technology to allow
peacekeeping troops to be rapidly deployed, to undertake their tasks
with the highest degree of protection and to be resupplied and
supported for operations that may last for months. We need the
intelligence capabilities to understand what is happening on the
ground, not least to avoid civilian casualties, and communications for
effective command and control.
The logic of pursuing transformation as a collaborative venture is both
operational and economic. Europe's crisis management operations will be
multinational; it makes no sense for each contingent to have
incompatible equipment. Pooling resources on research, technology
development and the acquisition and maintenance of equipment is the
only way our armed forces will get interoperable equipment at a price
they can afford, and our defence industries will be able to operate on
a viable economic scale. That is how the second part of the EDA's
mandate can be achieved: the strengthening of Europe's defence
technology and industrial base to compete effectively on a global basis
with US defence companies. Yet, less than 5 per cent of European
countries' defence research and technology budget is spent
collaboratively.
It can be done. The new A400M military transport aircraft being built
by Airbus is a good example of European member states pooling
resources. No individual nation could have done this by itself - but
the economic and technological benefits will be widely enjoyed. Yet it
took nearly two decades for this project to progress from an idea to a
contract.
Today, the EDA will ask ministers whether it is satisfactory for them
to be running 23 different national programmes for acquiring new
armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), with virtually no co-operation on
projects. If it is not, they should encourage collaboration on
programmes already underway, form more "user clubs" of countries using
the same equipment to save costs and work together with the EDA to
ensure that the next generation of AFVs share as much new technology -
for example, better protection against the ubiquitous rocketpropelled
grenade - and as many systems as possible.
The EDA is the best hope to ensure that defence budgets are spent to
better effect. It is ideally positioned to identify the intersection of
economic and operational imperatives. It provides both a forum and a
catalyst for member states to look at common problems and develop
shared solutions. But its success will crucially depend on political
will.
Ultimate authority and responsibility for deciding on defence matters
rests with the member states. Success will come only if the ministers
determine to spend their individual budgets differently. Only they can
bring about the necessary pooling of resources and efforts. Europe's
governments must rise to the challenge they have set themselves.
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EDA overzicht |